Referring to FIG. 1, a computer system according to the conventional art is shown. As depicted in FIG. 1, the computer system comprises a central processing unit (CPU) 110 communicatively coupled to a chipset 120. System memory 130 and various input/output (I/O) devices 140 are also communicatively coupled to the chipset 120. The I/O devices may include peripherals such as a keyboard, a pointing device, a speaker, and the like.
A graphical processing unit (GPU) 160 is also communicatively coupled to the chipset 120. The GPU 160 is also communicatively coupled to graphics memory 170, and a monitor 150. The chipset 120 acts as a simple input/output hub for communicating data and instructions between the CPU 110, system memory 130, GPU 160 and/or I/O devices 170. Chipset 120 may include complex bus architectures.
Certain processes and steps are realized as a series of instructions (e.g., code) and data that reside within the system memory 130 and are executed by the CPU 110. When executed, the instructions cause the CPU 110 to provide an operating system. Furthermore, one or more applications may be executing on the CPU 110 and controlled by the operating system.
Certain graphical processes and steps are realized as a series of instructions and data that reside within GPU accessible memory 170 and are executed by the GPU 160. The CPU 110 may provide one or more instructions, commands and/or data values to the GPU 160. Furthermore, the CPU 110 and the operating systems executing thereon control the GPU 160.
The GPU 160 is responsible for creating images displayed on an I/O device 140, such as the monitor 150. The CPU 110 sends a relatively small set of drawing instructions or commands to the GPU 160. The GPU 160 executes the instructions to provide lower level image processing operations such as bitmap transfers and painting, window resizing and repositioning, line drawing, font scaling polygon drawings, and the like. The GPU 160 then writes the frame data to the graphics memory 170. The GPU 160 also reads the frame data out of the graphics memory 170 and converts it to a composite red/green/blue signal for output to the monitor 150.
Offloading image processing-intensive tasks from the CPU 110 onto the GPU 160 increases system performance. As a result, the CPU 110 utilization is advantageously reduced allowing the CPU 110 to handle other tasks, which in turn increases the system's overall processing power.
Computer systems and the various components thereof have long been subject to numerous security threats. Computers are vulnerable to intruders, unauthorized users, or authorized users attempting to perform unauthorized actions. The graphics processing subsystem is also vulnerable. Data and instructions in the graphics processing subsystem are susceptible to interruption, interception, modification, and/or fabrication. For example, passwords can be stolen by spoofing images (e.g., Trojan horse), and copyrighted material can be stolen by copying the graphics memory.
As computer systems progress, increased security becomes more critical. Increased security is required at all levels of the computer system. Thus, the graphics subsystem also requires increased security. Drivers, buggy programs, malicious programs, and the like should be prevented from acquiring, overwriting, and/or intentionally or unintentionally revealing or corrupting data.
One solution that has been proposed, is to encrypt all data values and access commands flowing to and from the graphics processor and its associated graphics memory 170. Therefore, only authorized users, having the correct encryption key, would be able to utilize the processing resources of the GPU 160 and access the graphics memory 170. However, encryption is a computational intensive process, which requires considerable processing resources. Furthermore, encryption can result in increased image processing latency in the graphics processing subsystem.
Thus, there is a continued need to provide a secure transactional method for sending data and instructions to and reading them from the GPU 160 and/or graphics memory 170.